Month: March 2015

My goodness I have used a lot of parenthesis (brackets) in this review!

The Final Fantasy series is one from my youth. Beginning properly with Final Fantasy IX (after a failed attempt at VI), I have worked my way through the majority of these brilliant JRPGs. True, in recent years, the FuhFuh name has taken a bit of a sting, what with some iffy releases and angry fanboys, but with the hype surrounded Final Fantasy XV, Type-0 and Kingdom Hearts’ recent releases, the series seems to be slowly but surely climbing its way back up into the hearts of fans. Sure, FF definitely isn’t for everyone – but most of the tribulations come with the wacky JPRG genre…crazy hair, cliched yet somehow convoluted stories, anime physics and so on. But that’s what makes it so great!

Thanks, Dr. Mog. You’re so helpful and special!

Now, Squeenix have released several mobile games before, including re-releases of games and the somewhat underwhelming All The Bravest, which pretty much consisted of you furiously swiping your phone in a blind rage to kill enemies. But Final Fantasy: Record Keeper is different. The premise: in a quaint little world exists a museum that holds depictions of various key events across various Final Fantasy games (excluding the MMOs). Outta nowhere, a strange darkness (obviously) begins to corrupt the pictures. It is up to protagonist Tyro (who is basically your starter Pokémon that you instantly deposit and never play with) to save the day by entering the pictures and DESTROY THE EVIL! The game itself is split up into a series of game-related rooms (world) which can be completed in a semi-linear order. When you enter a room, you then enter a painting (dungeon). Once you have entered the dungeon, you choose a level. So, game -> dungeon -> level. Once you’ve entered a level, you fight against various FF enemies inspired by that particular game in a turn based Active Time Battle (ATB) style combat system, much like Final Fantasy games of old. Essentially, that’s all the game is…and the fighting can become a tad stale, buuut, as with most mobile games, it’s a fun pastime to dip in and out of. Each level requires you to pay stamina. You have a finite amount, but it recharges every three minutes or so, so unless you’re quickly blitzing through the game, this shouldn’t really be an issue. There are RPG elements too – you can combine/assign abilities and upgrade various weapons in true JRPG-over-complicated fashion, but I’ve made it a fair way through the game without really bothering with any of this, apart from equipping different weapons and armour. You build up a team of five characters – characters taken from various Final Fantasy games. They all pretty much do the same thing, though some can only have can only have specific weapons, armour and abilities equipped. That, and they have their own unique ‘soul break’ (this game’s variation of limit/trance/overdrive etc.). But it’s fun to build up a team of characters that you know and love so well from different worlds, working happily together to vanquish evil. Which leads me on to my next point – weapons and armour are taken from the FuhFuh games that inhabit Record Keeper, which is cool. However, some are crazily unbalanced and overpowered. Cloud was hitting for about 300 damage with one weapon, whilst Tidus was going for 150. Now, yes, we all love Cloud #FFVIIFanBoyLeetGamer and so on (jokes, IX is the best), but srsly. Levelling up is also a bit of an issue, because when new characters join your party they start at level 1 it seems. You can use irl money to level them up quicker, but who has that kind of cash? Fortunately, though, Record Keepers is not a particularly pay-to-win game, which we see so much now with moby games. It does, however, require a constant internet connection for whatever reason, so play via WiFi when available…

I don’t know what I don’t have enough of. But it’s something.

Each Record Keeper world comes with its own enemies and music directly from its origin game. For example, the Final Fantasy X world begins with you fighting your way through the streets of Zanarkand, in the same was as X begins. Whilst each world only has about five or so different monsters, you do fight unique bosses from that area of the game – so at the end of this Zanarkand section, you fight the Sinspawn boss that serves as a tutorial in X. It’s pretty rad. It’s also lovely to hear the brilliant scores from the various FF games as you’re playing. It can become a little grindy, what with you seemingly either being mega over- or under- (but never appropriately) levelled for dungeons, but that’s just a weeny factor.

From VI’s world.

As it stands, this game has only been released outside of Japan for a couple o’ weeks, so here’s hoping we get some more updates soon; currently, you can only play as about ten or so different characters, whereas Japan’s version has close to 50 from Final Fantasy I to XIII (not including XI). Combat can be a bit tedious, and the permanent internet connection does mean that this isn’t a great play-on-the-go kind of game, but all in all it’s a wonderful nostalgia experience for any fan of the series – as I said, the true joy comes from fighting bosses that you know with a smorgasbord of characters you love. For a free game, this is pretty darn good. Yes, there are microtransactions available for you millionaires out there, if you want to get the better equipment, and there is even an auto-battle feature if you enjoy playing games by not playing them! All in all, Record Keepers is a fun, harmless little addition to the series. Well done, Square Enix. Oh, it’s also been developed by a company called DeNA, who have recently teamed up with Nintendo to create mobile games for them, so there’s that!

This game first caught my eye due to the super rave reviews – on closer inspection, most of these reviews were saying “fuck you EA!” and “this is so much better than SimCity!”. Nevertheless, I’m a bit of a sucker for a good simulation game, so I bought Cities: Skylines (I even went the extra mile to get the Deluxe Edition because of course I want to put the Eiffel Tower in my town). I grew up playing Rollercoaster Tycoon and Sims, so there is always a place in my heart for this type of game.

You can also split your map into districts, allowing you to customise policies and hilarious names.

With the massive brown stain left by the disappointment that was EA’s SimCity (2013) still terrorising computers around the country, there has been a big ol’ space in the market for a new city simulation game. Cities: Skylines fills this hole, and succeeds in washing away whatever remnants of SimCity still linger using some sort of Febreeze sorcery. Cities takes what made the older SimCity games fun and exciting, and brings them into the modern day. Well, mostly anyway.

This option allows you to see noise pollution. NB does not include people listening to Cheryl Cole

When you boot up Cities, you have a few choices of maps to begin building on. Each map is split into square sections. You always start on the same section when you load a new map, but there is a lot of room to expand as your city grows. A lot of room. This enables you to strategically expand in the direction/area that suits your city’s needs. Do you look for an area rich in oil? Or perhaps a heavily forested area? Maybe you want to build some sort of lakeside town, in which case you want a big ol’ body of water. There is a lot of scope to let your imagination run wild.

Water pipes are essential in separating your poop from your drink.

The first and foremost thing that you need to be aware of when playing Cities is the importance of roads and energy. Roads are essential in building your town, as each one creates a build zone around it. Electricity powers your town, whilst water feeds it. These three components yield a high upkeep cost, so it is important to figure out how to get the best bang for your buck. Also, make sure that you place your water waste pipe downstream of your water plant, lest you get dirty poop water. Too often do my peeps get sick due to dirty poop water.

Once you have established the basics, you can begin creating zones. At first, you have three types: low density residential, low density commercial and industrial. Finding the correct paradigm in managing these zones is key to a successful town – for example, industrial zones produce a high level of noise pollution, so shouldn’t be near residential and so on. As your city expands and you meet more and more milestones, you will begin to unlock new buildings and zones, eventually turning your quiet little hamlet into a bustling city. Unless you go bankrupt first. Which I keep doing. But more on that later. Anyway: whilst building zones, it is also important to pay attention to the way in which your roads work. There is quite an extensive choice of roads to build, including multiple lanes and one-way systems. Playing around with these will enable you to find out which road best suits that area of your town. That brings me on to traffic. The traffic system in Cities is pretty impressive. Managing your congestion will result in a happy town, so stay on top of it. Cars appear to plan their routes well in advance, resulting in intelligent lane discipline. If a service vehicle needs to stop in the road, the traffic build up will cause a massive domino effect, resulting in your city coming to a standstill.

But you have to figure all of this out yourself, because there is no tutorial. You would think that, for a game with so many complexities, there would be some sort of tutorial. There are ‘advice’ bubbles which are pretty handy for hints and tips, but I would recommend checking out some YouTube tutorials before you really get stuck in. I’ve played for four hours now and still haven’t saved a game because I keep restarting; I can’t figure out how to save money on my electricity costs! Just like real life…

Map editor. I’m trying to figure out how water works.

The graphics are kind of what you would expect from a sim game. Nothing amazing, but nice enough to look at. Zooming in on your town reveals intricate detail and little animations that make your city feel alive (though building variation is quite limited, so neighbourhoods end up looking similar). You can also see people walking around – going to work, school, taking their dog for a walk etc. It’s a nice little addition to bring some life into the game. That being said, that’s kind of…all there is to do. Unlike SimCity, there are no disasters. No earthquakes, tornados, aliens. Even fires aren’t particularly dangerous because they don’t spread. It’s a shame, but here’s hoping that developers Colossal Order might add something like this in future DLC. Even a day/night cycle would be nice; I’d love to see my city lit up. Additionally, (and here is something that SimCity did right) there is no online option that allows you to visit your friends’ cities. Not that I have any friends, but it would be nice to have the option. If there is, I have yet to discover it.

On top of city simulation, there is also a map building tool (again, no tutorial, so good luck) and an ‘asset’ builder (buildings, roads, parks etc.). I can’t really add much more as I keep failing at this game. Which just makes me want to play more. If you enjoy simulation games, then I really recommend checking out Cities. At £22.99, it’s affordable for what it is. There are definitely some shortcomings, but with the incredible popularity and sales that is has received within just a few days of being released, there is a chance that future DLC or an expansion is on the way. To tide you over though, there are a few mods out as well as Steam community content. Now, if anyone can figure out how to maintain a positive profit, please let me know….